


Après

by enigmaticdr



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, My Season 4, Pregnancy, and now what?, bedelia is a badass, bedelia keeps her leg, bedelia on the run, she saves herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 12:50:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11944575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticdr/pseuds/enigmaticdr
Summary: There is a cottage in Normandy, a rare but intimately cherished remnant of her childhood, a buried bequest she has not thought about in years. A haven, a fortress, a sanctuary in which to take refuge. This is where she runs. This is where she waits for him.





	Après

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 of a (mostly completed) post-s3 WIP I've been writing for the better part of a year. This is my season 4. It's pretty different, but I hope you like it!

**I. PRESENT TIME**

There is a cottage in Normandy, a rare but intimately cherished remnant of her childhood, a buried bequest she has not thought about in years.  A haven, a fortress, a sanctuary in which to take refuge. This is where she runs.

On this winding road there are no neighbours for miles, and the quaint stone structure stands anchored to the hillside in peaceful isolation, as if suspended in a pocket of tranquil quiescence, patiently waiting for someone to come home.

She is not sure what to expect, or if to expect anything at all. It has been too long since she has allowed herself to feel anything other than the writhing seethe of injustice that she has no idea what this feeling is, within her, if it's anything. Still, it has to be something, because she is having trouble breathing. She is also having trouble holding her breath.

After some gentle coaxing, Bedelia’s brass key slides into the front lock like the interweaving of old lovers’ fingers. This house has held its breath for decades, and when she pushes open the door she is afraid that the memories, unbridled at last, will come flooding out like a river overflowing its banks. Instead, there is stillness and silence. She lingers at the threshold like a pin hovering on its point, hesitating on the landing. She has been traveling for weeks, but suddenly she feels the days fall away. It is a typical cool, grey morning, a light spring breeze scurrying leaves along the dirt road and rustling the grass on the dunes.

Nothing seems to have changed, except her. The nausea that has dogged her for months wells up again. Her hand falls instinctively to the gentle swell of her stomach, silently soothing, her thumb rubbing circles over the life that grows there.  

And then there is an undeniable pull from somewhere deep within the house; it takes her by the hand and beckons her inside, the way a lighthouse guides a lost sailor into harbour. She walks through the front hall and into the rooms beyond. Here there are poignant, empty spaces. Rugs rolled up. Boxes sealed with packing tape. Curtains drawn tightly. The blank spaces her parents had left for her to fill.

Bedelia blinks quickly and bites her lip. She hadn’t expected to feel so upset returning here. For months, she had convinced herself that she was coping as she sleepwalked through endless train stations and airports. Cities and hotel rooms kaleidoscope in her mind, a nightmarish picasso.

She drops her suitcase in the hallway. Steps out of her heels and rubs the small of her back.

Her father’s piano is still there in the main room, the tired keys undulating like the pleats of an accordion, as yellowed and crooked as an old woman’s teeth. When her fingers flutter over the ivory, the aged instrument croons a plaintive, discordant melody. It is painfully out of tune, and the notes reverberate around the empty room like her heartbeats against her ribcage. Her fingertips have left dime-sized imprints in the thick layer of dust coating the old piano’s surface. There is work to be done here if she is to inhabit this space, that much is for certain.

The photographs adorning the walls hide behind their glass frames, arenose and faded with age and neglect. She lingers before the yellowed image of a herself as a young girl, golden-haired and fancy-free wearing a smile the size of a crescent moon.  _ What happened to her _ ? Bedelia wonders, and then swallows that question down like an absinthal shot of whiskey and it coils, burning angrily, deep in her chest.

Bedelia lifts the lid off an old wooden chest, pulling out layers of knitted blankets stitched together with wool and cobwebs, until at last she uncovers the second bequest, perfectly preserved, glinting silver in the sunlight. The long shotgun’s steel body is cold, and its deceptive weight feels good in her arms. She holds it close, cradles it like it’s an infant, curls fingers tight around its neck like it’s a python she has tamed.

She removes her coat and gingerly lowers herself into a chair by the window, gun resting across her knees. She reaches into the breast pocket of her blouse, withdrawing the crumpled, faded piece of paper folded four times over on itself. She flattens it on her knee, caressing the wrinkles with her palm, smoothing the pad of her thumb over the barely perceptible ridges where the words have made their fossils in the paper.

His elegant handwriting. His scent clings to the pleats in the parchment, barely discernible beneath the fragrance of her own perfume, but there nonetheless, Terre d’Hermes and musky leather seeping together with the red ink. She closes her eyes a moment, and tries to forget the blood, tries to control her breathing. Tries not to think of everything that has been lost, because it’s altogether too overwhelming.

The shotgun across her lap is a much welcomed comfort, as are the stone walls of the house. She idly strokes her fingers up and down the roundness of her abdomen, nearly compulsive in this newfound act of self-consoling, eyes glued to the dirt road out the window.

She is filled with a fierce desire to protect, herself and her unborn child -  _ their  _ unborn child - and it burns red in her veins. If anyone has followed her here, she will know. She will be ready. And she will send them back to the hell they came from.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading. more to come.


End file.
